4th Place

I took fourth place in tonights training ride. I felt pretty good. We had 17 or so riders out on this loop and the guy who finished 1st races at a semi-pro level. He was pretty far ahead, but number 2 and 3 were close enough to see. I think I'll be able to beat them next time. This is a chippy ride. It starts out slow and conversational but whenever the road turns up, it gets pretty serious. The top guys are pretty good and they ride pacelines pretty well together. That being said, I took a super long pull on the front of the paceline and pulled the tops guys at around 32 mph for quite a while. I got to play lead out boy at the end of the ride to the 2 sprinters. It was fun to watch them go at it and I felt like I was able to help by lifting the pace right into the last 100 meters of the ride. I know that I am not training my sprinting muscles, so loosing that battle was ok. I would like to place 2nd or 3rd on this ride next time though. It's a fun ride that only should last about an hour, but they stop to regroup for the slower riders, and there are some really slow folks. Tomorrow morning is a swim workout. Pray that I have the discipline to get out of bed in the morning.